When it comes to classic flesh-eater movies, George Romero was preoccupied with the “what if” scenario of a zombie apocalypse while the Italians mostly cared about the sleaze. Guys like Lucio Fulci gave us zombie action along with a topless scuba diving girl, punctured eyeballs and great corpses with live worms falling out of their faces. We owe him a lot. This is the first major Italian zombie flick made in the wake of Dawn of the Dead and it hops from New York City to the Caribbean for that hint of jungle voodoo magic. That’s where a scientist goes missing and his daughter Tisa Farrow (Mia’s sister) meanders her way over to find him. The violence here is good stuff when it finally happens. Until then this plays like an excuse for the cast and crew to take a trip to the beach. Fulci paces this one like a leisurely stroll while his artless zooms and leering shots of gore are sort of funny. He’ll slow down ANY scene just to make sure we get a good look at a pile of butchered meat. He’s a charmer, that Lucio. Among the most famous parts is when a zombie fights a shark underwater, which looks like it was tricky to shoot even if it isn’t much of an action scene. The other big moment is the one where prissy Olga Karlatos gets her eye poked out by a jagged piece of wood in fluid-gushing close-up when a zombie pulls her by the hair through a broken door. It’s guaranteed to gross out half the audience and make the other half of the audience wonder why she doesn’t just move her head about half an inch. The zombie pulls her REALLY SLOW. You could fit in at least five Mitch Hedberg jokes and a Geico commercial while she waits to get the Snake Plissken makeover.
For hardcore zombie lovers only. The poster really sold this one in its day, as did its reputation as one of England’s censored “video nasties” a little later. In Italy, this is called Zombi 2 and was hyped as a sequel to Dawn of the Dead (which was called Zombi over there), though it’s not and though it’s about half as good.